Surrender It All
by ponderinfrustration
Summary: Tonight is the night that it ends. Forces have been rallied. The slayers may think they're in the right, but it's the vampires who protect this city from so much other danger. (Sequel to The Change.)
1. Three AM

The night is quiet, London at peace. A light snow dusts the ground, sheets of treacherous ice. Only the occasional cab trundling down streets. Night is inaccurate, early morning. Three a.m. in January, faint illumination of streetlights, or soft light seeping through curtains. It could almost be a hundred years earlier, a misty Victorian city in gaslight.

None of these things cross Sherlock's mind, of course. He is blind to it all, focused on tracking the nest of slayers so recently moved in, John by his side, each guarding the other's back, senses keen and sharp, long-adjusted to this darkness. (Ten years, in truth, for Sherlock. Ten years of darkness, not an ounce of daylight.)

The slayers have split up, spread out, trying to track the city's vampires. (They've been successful already with some less careful, less scrupulous than John and Sherlock.) Tonight is the night that it ends. Forces have been rallied. The slayers may think they're in the right, but it's the vampires who protect this city from so much other danger. (It's the slayers' own mistake that they don't count the werewolves as especially dangerous, though werewolf slayers and healer hunters have moved in, too.)

They've been out here for hours, hunting, stalking, calmly killing. Sherlock's Belstaff is torn and there's a scratch down the side of his face, while John got stabbed in the arm with a silver knife. (Clearly someone didn't realise the lack of impact silver has on vampires. And that was his big mistake.) Sherlock estimates that they can reasonably keep at this for another four hours, if they have to. (There are, after all, some benefits to winter when one is undead.)

Both wishes that they don't have to stay out that long. After all, every hour they stay out increases their chances of being dusted.


	2. Three Thirty AM

Violet prefers to fight with bullets than knives or potions. Simple, quick, effective at a distance. (Certainly more effective than arrows anyway, and hadn't that been an awful experiment?) Far be it for her to be prejudiced, but she's never been able to stand slayers of any sort. (As long as there have been werewolves, vampires and healers - witch is such a juvenile term - there have been slayers.) All that Siger's death achieved was exacerbating Violet's hatred for slaughterers, especially now when her son has become a prime target for them. So of course Violet is part of the counter-offensive tonight. (And those slayers better hope that they haven't harmed a hair on her boys' heads, or she's going to turn absolutely monstrous.)

She senses the change in the cool night air, feels the slayer approaching before he comes into view, uninjured, so unlikely he's met any of the others. (She's more relieved about that than she'd ever say.) He creeps along the darkness in the distance, as if the shadows are enough to protect him when the city is waiting for this. (Amateur.) Checking the silencer, Violet allows him to come well into range – timing and estimating carefully - before taking a breath, aiming and firing. He goes down without as much as a whimper, her bullet lodged between his eyes.

Violet breathes a sigh of a relief, and puts the rifle down. She'll sense when another target comes along. Now, she looks up at the stars, at the distant clouds that promise snow, and feels for the first time the cold bite to the night air. Age is creeping up on her, and tonight she knows it, but she's still got this mission left in her, because so help her if she didn't fight tonight and her sons were killed. (No guarantee that it won't happen, but at least she's part of it. At least she can take the pressure off them somewhat, give them a better chance to make it.) Not for the first time on this long night, she remembers Siger – so pale and broken – laid out in his coffin, and Sherlock's overdose only a couple of years later, and knows that whatever else happens in this early morning, she can kill some of those monsters who've tried to tear her family apart.


	3. Four AM

Sherlock and John keep walking, scenting, listening, sensing every disturbance, every displacement of air. Though so in tune to the city and each other, they haven't found a slayer in over an hour (though they did sense Violet shooting one over near Brixton. This is, after all, their city.)

Leinster Gardens. The empty houses. Sherlock feels it first, the instinctive twinge of __something__ not-quite-right. The door is open, just slightly, just enough for Sherlock's lean form to slip inside, John guarding the rear. Whisper of fabric, squeak of wool against the stone. He feels the shot as it's fired, the vibrations in the air, hits the ground as the bullet clips his shoulder. Wooden bullet. The wound smarts, stinging with each minor movement. Superficial after all. This guy's a professional, but miscalculated his aim. Some hope there.

Lights are off - a blessing. Sherlock slithers silently along the floor, unperturbed by the dust and grit embedding itself in his clothes. His ears perceive the click of a gun newly-cocked and he jumps up, simultaneously knocking the pistol away and slitting the slayer's throat. (Mycroft was the one who insisted that he bring one of his father's knives, and in this moment Sherlock finds himself grateful.) Hot, sticky blood sprays over his face, his hair, his clothes, and he grips the slayer tight, lips automatically clamped to the carotid, swallowing down one mouthful, two, (no point wasting all of it) before dropping the body and walking out, feeling rejuvenated.

John meets him as he comes back through the door, and his pupils dilate when he sees the fresh blood. Instinctively, he reaches up and tilts Sherlock's head down, carefully licking the blood off. Sherlock doesn't complain, and when John is finished he presses their lips together. One kiss, before hitting the trail again.


	4. Four Thirty AM

Martha glances up at the clock. Only half-four, plenty of time yet. The binding potion is thickening nicely, and the cleanser has come along well. With the herbs stewing, she finds she's ahead of schedule and makes a nice cup of tea. (No point getting worn out before the boys come back. They're going to need her tonight, and likely the others will as well, though knowing what Violet's like she'll just need something so as not to panic, and only then if the boys are hurt. Thank God there're three full bottles of brandy left over from brewing.)

Her hip is free tonight, the old arrow wound long recovered and feeling brilliant with all of the magic flowing free in the kitchen. She's reminded - just a little - of the time Sherlock got staked in the leg. It seems like only yesterday, but it's a good eight years ago. Funny how time is getting to fly by lately, though this night hasn't. (There are always some exceptions. If any of those slayers harm those boys, it won't just be Violet they'll have to contend with. Martha knows more than a few tricks of her own, and it's not only her boys from upstairs whom she counts as family these days. (The wards she put on everyone will have failed with their first kills, and she knows well enough no one's _capturing_ slayers tonight, and so, she is ready to face almost any eventuality, because there are some things even she cannot save them from.))

There's always the chance, of course, that they won't be coming back. But that won't happen. That can't happen. (Feeling worried and apprehensive is perfectly fine on a night such as this. It doesn't mean that they're going to get dusted. Though, to be fair, the feeling didn't fail her when John carried a halfway-dead Sherlock home after the explosion at the pool. But no, she mustn't think like that. Everyone's going to be fine, if a little cut-up and wood-poisoned, and maybe needing some silver shards dug out from under delicate werewolf skin.)

Martha sighs, shaking her head to clear the thoughts, and goes back to her work, knowing she's needed here, but part of her wishing that she could be out there too, protecting this family of werewolves and vampires and clairvoyants. Wishing won't help anyone, and nor will worrying about all of the what ifs and maybes of things that could go wrong.


	5. Five AM

Sherlock's shoulder stings, the pain gnawing at him and slowly getting worse. He doesn't complain, simply bears it out and doesn't mention it to John. No use in worrying him unnecessarily, and it isn't a serious wound, though he is getting to feel just slightly feverish. (It has a long way to go before it becomes serious, and he takes comfort in that knowledge.)

John, however, knows well that Sherlock's injured. He sees the faint gloss to his eyes, the way they become starry under the street lamps, the minutely different angle at which he holds his arm, but he won't press for details (not yet, at least), instead reassures himself with the knowledge that if it were serious then Sherlock wouldn't be able to hide it. (Not that he's doing very well as it is, but that's beside the point.)

All the same, John takes out the next three slayers that they come across, Sherlock only putting up a token resistance against his insistence. He briefly considers hauling Sherlock back to Baker Street anyway, but shakes the thought off. It can't be that serious of an injury, and though there also can't be too many slayers left, he doesn't much like the thought of leaving the others to deal with them. (He knows this is the sort of loyalty that almost got him killed in Korea, but the others are his family too and he can't do that to them.) Besides, Sherlock would never forgive him for it, and never is a long time for vampires.

Instead, after a lucky escape from a slayer with a long bow, he binds Sherlock's shoulder with part of his own shirt, cursing himself for not bringing any of Mrs Hudson's herbs, and the two carry on, flakes of snow drifting melancholically to the ground. A light dusting over boots and concrete, and spilled blood.


	6. Five Thirty AM

It being a while since Mycroft has found any slayer, he calls Andrea for an update. Her knowledge of the supernatural world has proven useful tonight. Combined with her technological abilities, she's able to send each of them the most up-to-date information for the area that they're in. (It is, apparently, futile for him to keep searching here. This whole quadrant has been cleared out, with the help of some of his connections.)

"Six dusted," Andrea says, "and two werewolves dead as well."

Mycroft feels ill at the thought of vampires getting dusted, but he knows that if Sherlock and John were some of the casualties, then he'd have been contacted immediately. (He knows his mother is far too careful with her long-distance abilities from years of sniper training, and Lestrade has Molly Hooper to steer him into the clear. It's only John and Sherlock at serious risk.)

He swallows back all of the irrational worry that he has, attempting to remain stoic. His family is fine, will be fine. (Has to be fine.) "My brother and John Watson?"

"Your brother was clipped by a wooden bullet, but nothing serious. And John Watson is perfectly fine. They've just swept Belgravia and are heading for Holland Park. They'll come across several in Kensington, but nothing that they can't handle."

"And the others?"

"No need for you to worry, sir. Your mother has broken her own record, and Miss Hooper's abilities are proving even more successful than expected."

"I'm not worrying." (Though Mycroft knows she can see through his lies, he has a façade to maintain. In a way, it's an odd sort of comfort that this provides him with.)

"Never said you were. I'll let you know when you have a reason to be."

"Good. And, Andrea?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You may extend your leave by five days."

He can hear the smile in her voice. "Thank you, sir."

The phone call ends and Mycroft sighs, relieved to hear that everyone's still alright. Checking the bindings on his leg, he scrapes a hand through his hair. There still remain slayers for him to eliminate in the other quadrants, and he'd better head for Holland Park. There's going to be plenty of slayers around there. (Hopefully, his brother won't underestimate them.)


	7. Six AM

They don't have too much longer left, and John is relieved. The tiredness in Sherlock's eyes is plain to see - though he's fed, and he's actually slept over the last few days. The wood poison is beginning to affect him, though not yet in any co-ordinational way that could endanger them. But that knowledge isn't enough to stop John worrying whenever he catches a faraway look in his lover's eyes.

"We should go back to Baker Street." John finally voices the thought that's been burning his mind for the last hour after checking the binding on Sherlock's shoulder.

Sherlock shakes his head, as John suspected that he would. "No. Not yet. We still have an hour."

"Yes, but you've been wood-poisoned."

"It's not serious. I'm fine."

"Not serious! Sherlock -"

Sherlock cuts him off with a sigh, standing up to his full height though he winces when that tugs on the wound. "I know, John. But you've seen it. It's only a scratch. An hour isn't going to severely impact my survival chances. Mrs Hudson will work her magic, and I'll be just fine in a day or two."

"Well, if you're sure . . ."

"When have you ever known me not to be?"

The sheer arrogance of the question makes John smile. Instead of answering, he tugs Sherlock's head down and kisses him, lips soft and gentle, warm in the night air but not as warm as when he was human. Sherlock pulls him close, and without either of them saying a word, they stand there, holding each other, kissing as if it'll be the last time and both of them feeling oddly blessed, as the city quietly begins waking up and the snow drifts slowly to the ground, coating the concrete and buildings in a blanket of white, as if this were an innocent land.

(This has never been an innocent land.)


	8. Six Thirty AM

Greg rolls out of the way of the slayer's silver stake, and Molly intercepts the woman coming at him from the other side, twisting her arm back behind her so that she drops the stake. The slayer attempts to pull away, but Molly tightens her grip, an automatic reflex left over from the times she's wrestled bottles of cocaine off of Sherlock.

The first slayer makes another attempt on Greg, but again the werewolf is too fast for him, twisting around and embedding the stake instead deep in the slayer's abdomen. A gurgling noise, an attempt to pull the stake out. And slayer though he may be, it's still against Greg's nature to let the man suffer to death, so he pulls his pistol and presses it to his temple, ending it as easy as that with a spray of blood and brain matter against the alley wall.

By this time, Molly has knocked her would-be assassin into unconsciousness, with a carefully calculated clocking of a pistol to her forehead, outright killing being as against her nature now as ever before.

"You okay?" Greg asks, eyes filled with concern for the pathologist. (They've known each other for years, and it's never gotten beyond friendship, but sometimes when he sees her face flushed like it is now, eyes twinkling in the heat of the moment, he finds himself wishing that it was.)

Molly smiles back at him, catching her breath and leaning against the cold stone wall, slipping her gun back into her waistband. "As I ever am."

Silently, they tie the living slayer, leaving her ready for Mycroft's pick-up crew. The dead one they leave as he is, unable to harm anyone now and certainly unable to threaten them or their friends, almost family.

Without questioning it, they move on, Molly leading the way, the ghosts of the past leading them into the ever-approaching dawn.


	9. Seven AM

They're jumped before they ever reach Holland Park, three slayers to both of them. Sherlock can't understand how they were ambushed, the wood poison creeping insidiously along his veins, blurring his mind. John cries out as a silver knife pierces his shoulder, wrenching through the muscle, drawing out memories of Korea. The wooden stake that bites deep into his thigh takes over all thoughts, banishing even the image of Sherlock doing battle from his field of vision.

Sherlock's hands are quite full, and he feels more than sees the encroaching dawn, feels it deep in his bones and knows that the odds of their getting home tonight drop with each moment that they spend here. The growing pain in his shoulder sears when his arm is wrenched behind his back. It clouds his mind, blinding him to John. He twists, kicks back, catches one of the slayers behind the knee and topples himself forward, hitting the ground hard with the slayers still at his back. In the ensuing melee he manages to free his good arm, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling forth a vial of peracetic acid. The glass almost slips from his fingers before he smashes it into the back of the nearest slayer, rolling free from his captors at last.

John is still struggling, the stake in his leg slowing him down considerably. Sherlock doesn't have time to focus on freeing him, knifing his own adversaries, one in the chest and the other in the abdomen, the third thoroughly distracted thanks to the acid.

But there're more slayers, and then more, surrounding him. A punch thrown, a knife slashing through delicate skin, biting, burning pain in his own belly. (And doesn't that quite seal the night?) Sherlock pulls it out, forcing it instead into the chest of the slayer behind him. (He always knew baritsu would come in useful in a fight like this.)

And then there's John. And in the mess of bodies and blood and would-be killers John is beside him in spite of his own wounds, somehow still standing and Sherlock feels as though they could survive the daylight together if they had to.

He swoops in, coat flapping behind him and plants a kiss to John's cheek in the midst of it all. Neither says a word, and the coat slips to the ground, freeing Sherlock to drive another kick into the face of a slayer. (Tall, dark, married with three children and a mistress and how can he possibly be deducing in the middle of this fight for their very lives?)

John's eyes meet his, wide and round as a strange, strangled cry gurgles out of his throat. Sherlock reaches out, desperate to pull the stake out of his chest and promise him _it will be all right, they'll be all right, the morning will find them back in Baker Street_. But his hand is a heartbeat too late and the dust that was John H. Watson slips through his fingers.

A slayer pulls his arm back, and Sherlock's mind is blank, seeming to short out and throwing the place into tumbling disarray. His teeth embed themselves in the slayer's throat, ripping it free as his body collapses to the ground. And the others are watching him now, this vampire, trapped like a feral animal in a circle of hunters, snapping at them, clawing, until some danger from behind has them dropping back, some falling, blood blooming on their chests or fountaining from their throats. Sherlock is oblivious, knowing only that _John is gone, John is dust,_ ashes on the ground and on his hands, and somewhere a quieter voice in the back of his mind murmuring, _the sun won't be long in rising._

The gunshots - Smith and Wesson pistol, very distinctive - reach his ears before the world speeds up again, bullets embedding themselves in his chest. And he knows, deep down he knows as the snowflakes still fall around him, that the bullets are wooden.

He sways, knees buckling and hitting the ground_. It doesn't matter. John is gone_.


	10. Seven Fifteen AM

Violet rounds the corner in time to see Sherlock fall to his knees, face pale and dazed, blood seeping from the holes in his torso. And in that moment she knows she's losing both of them tonight.

He topples to the ground, limp as a doll, lying there shaking, half-curled against the pain, eyes squeezed shut. She kneels beside him, pulling him into her arms and leaning his head against her chest. (It always comforted him when he was a child.) His fingers slide up her hand and hold weakly onto her wrist, as if that will hold him to this afterlife.

"Just hold on, sweetheart," she murmurs softly, hoping to reassure him, hoping that he won't worry, hoping that he doesn't realise that John is gone with the severity of his own wounds. She doesn't think she could bear to explain that to him, she doesn't want him fighting that pain too along with his injuries. "We'll get you back to Baker Street and Martha will treat these wounds. You'll be fine."

Sherlock shakes his head weakly, though he hasn't the strength to be able to afford to waste it. Violet knew he would but she had to ask anyway. Had to try to say something to fight the aching that has taken up residence in her own chest. "No . . . time," his voice is faint. "Two minutes . . . to sun-up."

"Oh, Sherlock." With the hand supporting his head, she strokes his curls gently, hoping to ease some of the pain he's in, or at least to distract him from it.

"Sorry." He swallows back the blood in his throat. "Promised . . . be fine."

Tears burn Violet's eyes and she holds him closer, kissing his cool forehead before laying her cheek against it. "It's all right. It's all right. It's not your fault."

"Tried save . . . John, but -" His voice cracks and Violet put her finger to his lips, not wanting him to exhaust himself with too much talking, or to make him relive the memories.

"Don't say anything. I know."

Mycroft kneels beside them, and she shakes her head just slightly at him. He takes Sherlock's other hand but doesn't say anything, just needing to be here.

"Tired." The word is hardly a word, more like a stray breath.

"Sshh. Rest all you want. I'll stay right here, all right?"

Sherlock nods, too weak to muster the strength to say anything. Violet can feel him slipping away, knows that there's nothing that can be done, but that doesn't stop her hoping that somehow there's some way that he can survive this, that he can pull through and go back to Baker Street. (There's no point in wishing, because he's dying for the second time, and she knows that without John he'd only be tempted to let himself get dusted anyway. So all that she can do is hold him, and pray that it doesn't take too long, because much and all as she wants him to live, she doesn't want him to suffer either, and if he's not gone when the sun comes up, then it's going to be the worst suffering that he's gone through.)

"Thank you . . . Mike," Sherlock slurs, pale, boodied lips hardly moving now. And Violet can see the pain that crosses Mycroft's face at his words, the tears that well up in his eyes and he fights back, because Sherlock hasn't called him Mike since he was five years old and couldn't say Mycroft.

"You're welcome, brother." Mycroft's voice is hoarse, but the tears don't break through. He's had too much practice at fighting pain for that to happen.

Sherlock's lip twitches into a slight smile, before a groan escapes him and he tries to arch his back against the pain, but he's too weak and it all hurts too much, and he wants to hold on to see the sun so that – on the extreme unlikelihood that there's something after this – he can tell John about it.

The morning is lightening, sky gone from black to grey with the first, faint blue creeping in. Violet knows it won't be much longer. Another minute will bring the sun a long way, but this waiting is agonising. It's even worse than when Sherlock was changing, because at least then there was the chance that he'd wake up in five days. That chance is a decade gone now, and this second death is going to be permanent.

Finally, at long last, the sun creeps over the horizon. Sherlock shudders in Violet's arms, but he's still holding on, still fighting.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" The words are almost inaudible, spoken so impossibly low, and Violet looks down to see that his eyes are half-open, watching the sun, the lightening sky, glazed and dazed though they are.

"Yes. It is."

The first ray of light hits Sherlock and he stifles a scream, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as his heart shudders back to life. (Curse of exposure to daylight, becoming half-human before death, heart beating, lungs fighting for air, all old wounds scorching open again, blood pouring forth. Rapid death from exsanguination. Ironic, for a vampire.)

They're all open again, all of the old injuries from the pool and since, bleeding now the way they should have then. Blood in a stream down his leg from the stake eight years ago, and the sniper ten. Seeping through his shirt from the hole in his chest that John stitched that night, tonight's bullet wounds collapsing lungs, leaving him gasping for breath, feeling as if he's suffocating. The minor cuts and abrasions coming back to life now, the shoulder injury reminding him of its existence. (It all burns, raging along his nerve endings, searing him from the inside out. Violet knows that death will be a mercy after this.) Blood bubbles from the side of his mouth, a frothy mess, a trickle from his nose. Lungs failing, heart struggling. (Familiar story.)

His eyes roll in his head, and though he is mouthing words, he can't get enough breath to even moan, organs all collapsed. Violet grips him tighter, holding him. (He needs to know she's here, that she's stayed though it's hopeless, and she feels so damn helpless watching him die like this, body thrown into convulsions, pain ripping through him. Blood trickles across the frosty concrete, scarlet on ivory, warmth on cold. Life on death.)

Sherlock's hand limply sitting on Violet's wrist twitches, fingers snagging on the sleeve. Another shudder passes over him, a breeze felt by neither Mycroft nor Violet, and with it he is gone. Eyes blank, limp body sinking into his mother's hold. Violet chokes back a sob, kisses his forehead, closes his eyes, hugs him close. And in a moment he disintegrates into dust, clothes, body, everything that was Sherlock Holmes except the blood that he's left on his mother, soaking into her skin.

(And, so, this is how it ends. The boy never meant to survive his first night on this earth acquires a family, a life. People who love him and whom he loves. And through death, and pain, and condemnation to darkness, it is the final sunlight of his life which causes his death, leaving him to simply fall into dust on a January morning, his mother and brother staring at the ash that only a heartbeat ago had been a part of their family.)


	11. Nine PM

The night is quiet, peace having settled across the city, free now from the slayer threat. Occasional cars meander down winding streets, fresh snow sinking slowly - feather light - to the ground, dusting over the half-melted slush. (And half-frozen dried blood with all of the memory that it holds for those left behind.) The view of the city from the hospital rooftop is astounding, but Violet can't bring herself to appreciate it, every thought circling back to some variation of _they're gone_. There is a hollowness in her chest which will never fill now, aching so much that she can't cry, just numbly stare at this city which her son and his lover have died for.

The pain is etched, too, in Mycroft's face, carved into the lines around his eyes. He doesn't speak, refuses to even move a hand to wipe the tears creeping silently down his face though he is trying to fight them, trying to remain stoic for the sake of his mother, doesn't want to upset her more no matter how futile that may be. (It's the impossibility of his preventing this that hurts the most, the fact that he couldn't save his little brother in spite of the power he wears like a cloak. All he could do was watch him die, watch as the life that he's spent so long protecting slipped away.) In spite of his attempts to distance himself from emotion, and though he knows that caring is not an advantage, he's never been able to stop caring about Sherlock, not even now when Sherlock has been reduced to dust. The world feels empty.

Molly knew, of course, the moment that John was gone. When the confirmation came in the form of a ghost, and was followed by the news of Sherlock's demise, Greg saw the pain that crossed her face and didn't press for details, just caught her as she slipped to the ground, tears shining in her eyes. (Neither can believe, can articulate any words about it, both feeling like automatons. And there on that rooftop, Greg grips Molly's hand tight, wishing he could take away her pain. (Even deeper, wishing that he could bring his two best friends back, knowing that it's futile.) He and Mycroft share a knowing look, each carrying their own burden of illogical guilt.)

There is no magic that can help them now, no magic that can change any of the events of the last twenty-four hours. Martha knows this, feels it instinctively in her bones, yet still finds herself wishing that there was something that she could do. Anything aside from this rooftop funeral.

Sherlock specifically said it, the one contingency plan he had in place - if they didn't make it, throw the ashes off the roof of St Barts, let them permeate the city from here. Mycroft did the honours, yet still nobody can bring themselves to move from this spot, can bring themselves to speak, simply watching as vampire ashes - invisible, now, to the naked eye - drift across London.

The haunting strains of violin music, emanating from some indeterminate point like a dirge, an elegy, finally bring Violet fully to tears.(Only time can work magic now, slowly, healing yet never erasing, leaving the memories with their unique brand of bittersweet pain.)


End file.
